The companies, however, say without the extra money, pay phones will disappear faster.

"The new $1 coin will have different characteristics from the current ones and so will not be recognized by the current coin validation systems," they say in their application to the regulator.

"Permitting the companies to recover the costs associated with upgrading their pay phones to accept the new $1 coins through rate increases for local pay phone calls will also assist the companies in slowing the decommissioning of pay phones as profitability will be more likely."

They say pay phone use has been steadily eroded by increasing cell phone usage.